USS Monitor

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This article is about the first USS Monitor, a Civil War ironclad. For the World War II vehicle landing ship, see USS Monitor (LSV-5).
USS Monitor
USS Monitor
Career United States Navy ensign
Ordered: 4 October 1861
Laid down: 1861
Launched: 30 January 1862
Commissioned: 25 February 1862
Fate: Lost at sea, 31 December 1862
General characteristics
Displacement: 987 tons (1,003 metric tons)
Length: 172 ft (52 m)
Beam: 41 ft 6 in (12.6 m)
Draught: 10 ft 6 in (3.2 m)
Speed: 8 knots (15 km/h)
Complement: 59 officers and men
Armament: 2 × 11 in (279 mm) Dahlgren smoothbores
Armor: iron

USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the United States Navy. She is most famous for her participation in the first-ever naval battle between two ironclad warships, the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862 during the American Civil War, in which Monitor fought the ironclad CSS Virginia of the Confederate States Navy. ‘‘Monitor’’ was the first in a long line of Monitor-class U.S. warships and the term "monitor" describes a broad class of European harbor defense craft.

Ironclads were only a recent innovation, started with the 1859 French battleship La Gloire. Afterwards, the design of ships and the nature of naval warfare changed dramatically.

Contents

[edit] Design

Monitor was one of three ironclad warships ordered by the U.S. Navy, after Galena and New Ironsides.

Statue of John Ericsson in Battery Park, NYC, holding a model of Monitor in his hand
Statue of John Ericsson in Battery Park, NYC, holding a model of Monitor in his hand

Designed by the Swedish engineer John Ericsson, Monitor was described as a "cheesebox on a raft," consisting of a heavy round revolving iron gun turret on the deck, housing two large (11 inch) Dahlgren guns, paired side by side. The original design of the ship used a system of heavy metal shutters to protect the gun ports while reloading. However, the operation of the shutters proved to be so cumbersome that the crews operating the guns adopted the procedure of simply rotating the turret away from potential hostile fire to reload the guns. Further, the inertia of the rotating turret proved to be so great, that a system for stopping the turret to fire the guns was only implemented on later models of ships in the Monitor class. The crew of Monitor solved the turret inertia problem by firing the guns on the fly while the turret rotated past the target. While this procedure resulted in a substantial loss of accuracy, given the close range at which Monitor operated, the loss of accuracy was not critical.

The armored deck was barely above the waterline. Aside from a small boxy pilothouse, a detachable smokestack and a few fittings, the bulk of the ship was below the waterline to prevent damage from cannon fire. The turret comprised 8 bolted together layers of 1" plate with an additional ninth plate inside to act as a sound shield. A steam donkey engine turned the turret. The heavily armored deck extended beyond the waterproof hull which was only 5/8" thick. Thus the vulnerable parts of the ship were completely protected. Monitor's hull was built at the Continental Iron Works in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York, and the ship was launched there on January 30, 1862. There is a statue in Monsignor McGolrick park in Greenpoint, facing Monitor Street, commemorating the ship.

Monitor was innovative in construction technique as well as design. Parts were forged in nine foundries and brought together to build the ship; the whole process took less than 120 days. In addition to the "cheesebox", its rotating turret, Monitor was also fitted with Ericsson's novel marine screw, whose efficiency and reliability allowed the warship to be one of the first to rely exclusively upon steam propulsion. Ericsson anticipated some aspects of modern submarine design by placing all of Monitor's features except the turret and pilothouse underwater, making it the first semi-submersible ship. In contrast, Virginia was a conventional wooden vessel covered with iron plates and bearing fixed weapons.

[edit] Battle of Hampton Roads

See main article Battle of Hampton Roads

At the Battle of Hampton Roads Virginia attacked the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 8, 1862, destroying USS Cumberland and Congress and forcing Minnesota aground before withdrawing. That night, Monitor, under command of Lt. John L. Worden, arrived under tow from Brooklyn. When Virginia returned the next day, March 9, 1862, to finish off Minnesota and the rest of the U.S. fleet, Monitor sailed forth to stop her. The ironclads fought for about four hours, neither one sinking or seriously damaging the other. Tactically, the battle was a draw—neither ironclad did significant damage to the other. However, it was a strategic victory for Monitor. Virginia's mission was to break the Union blockade; that mission failed. Monitor's mission was to defend the U.S. fleet, which it did. Virginia did however occupy the 'battlefield' following the strategic retreat of Monitor, after the captain was hit in the eyes with gunpowder. The two ironclads never again fought each other, although Virginia occasionally steamed out to Hampton Roads in an unanswered challenge to Monitor.

[edit] The Monitor-class warship

Monitor became the prototype for the monitor class of warship. Many more were built, including river monitors and deep-sea monitors, and they played key roles in Civil War battles on the Mississippi and James rivers. Some had two or even three turrets, and later monitors had improved seaworthiness.

Just three months after the famous Battle of Hampton Roads, the design was offered to Sweden, and in 1865 the first Swedish monitor was being built at Motala Wharf in Norrköping; she was named John Ericsson in honor of the engineer. She was followed by 14 more monitors. One of them, Sölve, is still preserved at the marine museum in Gothenburg.

The last U.S. Navy monitor-class warship was struck from the Navy List in 1937; however, the term remains in use as a generic term to describe an armored river patrol vessel.

[edit] Loss at sea

Engraving of the Monitor sinking
Engraving of the Monitor sinking

While the design of Monitor was well-suited for river combat, her low freeboard and heavy turret made her highly unseaworthy in rough waters. This feature probably led to the early loss of the original Monitor, which foundered during a heavy storm. Swamped by high waves while under tow by Rhode Island, she sank on December 31, 1862 in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 16 of 62 crewmen were lost in the storm.

The name Monitor was given to the troop carrier USS Monitor (LSV-5), commissioned late in World War II. She served primarily in the Pacific theater, and was later scrapped.

[edit] Rediscovery

USS Monitor Historical Marker outside the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, Hatteras, NC, June 2007
USS Monitor Historical Marker outside the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, Hatteras, NC, June 2007

In 1973, the wreck of the ironclad Monitor was located on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean about 16 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The wreck site was designated as the United States' first marine sanctuary. Monitor Sanctuary is the only one of the thirteen national marine sanctuaries created to protect a cultural resource, rather than a natural resource.

In 1998 the warship's propellor was raised to the surface. On 16 July 2001, divers from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary brought to the surface the 30-tonne steam engine. In 2002, after 41 days of work, the revolutionary revolving gun turret was recovered by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a team of U.S. Navy divers. Before removing the turret, divers discovered the remains of two trapped crew members. The remains of these sailors, who died while on duty, are at the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, awaiting positive identification.

The site is now under the supervision of NOAA. Many artifacts from Monitor, including her turret, propeller, anchor, engine and some personal effects of the crew, have been conserved and are on display at the Mariners' Museum of Newport News, Virginia. Artifact recovery from the site has become paramount, as the wreck has become unstable and will decay over the next several decades; this fate also awaits many other commonly-dove wrecks of iron and steel ships, such as Titanic.

In 1986, Monitor was designated a National Historic Landmark. It is one of only three accessible monitor wrecks in the world, the others being the Australian vessel HMVS Cerberus, and the Norwegian KNM Thor, which lies at about 25 feet off Verdens Ende in Vestfold county, Norway.

[edit] Campaign to honor Monitor

The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable is mounting a grassroots campaign to persuade the United States Congress and the Navy to name a Virginia class submarine after Monitor. Despite the enduring fame of the original, innovative ironclad, there has not been a warship named Monitor listed in the Naval Vessel Register since 1961.

[edit] References

  • Military Heritage magazine did a feature on the USS Merrimack (CSS Virginia), the USS Monitor, and the Battle at Hampton Roads (Keith Milton, Military Heritage, December 2001, Volume 3, No. 3, pp.38 to 45 and p. 97).
  • Gott, Kendall D., Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry—Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862, Stackpole books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.

[edit] Publications

  • Bennett, The Monitor and the Navy under Steam (Boston, 1900)
  • Johnson and C. C. Buel (editors), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War volume i, (New York, 1887)
  • Wilson, Ironclads in Action (London, 1896)
  • Hill, Twenty-six Historic Ships (New York, 1903)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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